I ran across this awhile back. Anyone have any input?https://www.teknic.com/products/clea...-servo-motors/
I am finally getting serious about building a custom machine. This showed up in my inbox last year. It's supposed to be a small servo motor but take the input from a stepper driver. Just curious...

Terry...
I have used a couple dozen of them on various projects. They are a brushless DC servo, with an integrated drive, so they do no require one. Step and direction signals can come straight from the pin or I/O board. Make sure you do your torque, reduction and rpm calcs well as they have a number of products with a finite power and rpm range.

Also on my project I want to make a rather large cnc turning center for turning long posts. Are these strong enough to turn and hold the post while the spindle is cutting a pattern ( like on an a 8" square post?)

Which motors did you use for the mechmate Bill? Iíve been looking over there motors and wasnít quite sure. I think itís a pretty clear upgrade for me to make though, just ironing out the details. I intend to use a centroid acorn controller.

I'm using CPM-SDSK-2310S-RLN. They are little NEMA23's and were the least expensive when purchased a few years ago.

After fighting control problems for more than two years, I dumped the steppers, I drank the Teknic Kool Aid and bought four of these little guys for the MM. A more professional Hicon controller was added. What a difference!!

The 2310S-RLN incorporate a lower resolution controller. I have no way to measure whether the higher resolution servos run smoother. But for my machine and my applications, they are quite accurate and suite my needs well.

My MM is a larger version, with a 6' x 12' operating envelope with a 10"z. The gantry is heavy. The little 23's drive a reduction boxes, 4.5:1, 16 tooth x 72 tooth. During performance testing the servos drove the table exceeding 400-IPM, and there was more to go. But I'm sure they can easily drive this large gantry with 3:1 boxes.

I too have a Centroid Controller on the shelf waiting for time to upgrade. It will be interesting to see how well it performs on the MechMate..

I have these servos mounted to a MechMate and a Bridgeport in Austin. Send a pm if you are interested to see them run.

Hi BillT,

What motors did you use for the Bridgeport? I'm planning to convert an Induma 1s this fall/winter (an Italian vertical turret mill like a BP on steroids - weighs 3,300#) and have been looking at the ClearPath/Acorn option. I'd also be interested in looking at Tecknics.

It is very important to know the performance of these servos can only be achieved by driving them with a proper power supply at the rated voltage of 75VDC. I chose the Teknic power supply STS-EMF75, now a legacy of theirs, but perhaps still available. It is listed at the bottom of this page. https://www.teknic.com/products/lega...gacy-products/

Two points quickly..

1) I'm using the same servo to drive the Z axis, as I bought the ClearPath stuff before rebuilding the machine. When I rebuilt the head, I weighed the quill and found its weight to be 20lbs. After I installed the ball screw setup to drive the quill I found that I could easily turn the screw by hand with little force to move the quill up and down. The large servo I have on the Z axis is totally inefficient and I can easily use a smaller one.

2)Over the years, the price of servo motors and controllers have come down. Manufactures are trying to capture more of the hobby market. We've seen this with Centroid whereby, they introduced the ACORN controller. Hicon now offers a less expensive professional controller. And DMM, Dynamic Motor Motion has introduced a complete servo package for machines like the Bridgeport. Find it here: http://www.dmm-tech.com/multiaxissolutions2.html

Let's consider the cost of my ClearPath stuff. Three servos, a power supply, and a Hicon controller cost me approx, $3,200 plus cabling and the labor to build the cables. Today, I can purchase a complete DMM system for the Bridgeport for a little over $1,500; a complete 'Turn Key' system. That's a savings of $1,700 bucks.

I really like the ClearPath stuff. It is cool, easy to setup and for me, trouble free. But to have $1,700 more dollars to spend on the machine elsewhere. You can easily apply that money to a set of digital scales.

There are many more options available today than were available four years ago when I purchased my equipment. Today, I would give the DMM serious consideration.

I am glad to hear we have a MechMate running the Teknic motors. I would love to see some pictures of your setup. Particulalry how the 23 series gear reduction is setup. I also want to see an Acorn controller in action on a MechMate. I think this combination in the next step in the electronics for the MechMate.

Sure, I'll begin to put the information together. Perhaps it is best to start a fresh thread on the ClearPath servos with the Acorn controller. There we can discuss my setup, the good, the bad, and future improvements where needed. This could be a very informative thread and a lot of fun.